NEW EARTH

The premise of this novel was innovative and ingenious for the first hundred pages or so. Then it sputtered and fizzled out like a dud firecracker. Why? Ben Bova is a six-time winner of the Hugo Award. What made this promising story turn into a turkey? Umm, I think it’s a case of a highly capable author resting on his laurels. I’ve seen this happen recently with great sci-fi writers like Larry Niven ( recently flopped with Bowl of Heaven ) and I’m wondering when I’ll read another sci-fi classic like Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama . Maybe sci-fi writers have so many good ideas in their heads that they rush through a novel just to get to the next. The result is a clunker, not a total loss, but a missed opportunity to deliver a classic story. I believe this novel was one of those missed opportunities.

The story starts off strong with the reader finding out that Earth is being inundated by flood waters from the effects of global warming. The world is in chaos with the ice from Greenland and Antarctica melting, causing worldwide evacuations. Eighty years prior to this, the World Council funded a starship called Gaia on an exploratory trip to a recently discovered planet revolving around the star Sirius. From previous unmanned missions, man has learned that this New Earth seems to be a duplicate of our planet. Now the starship with a crew of twelve is in orbit around New Earth. Robots rouse the crew that have been frozen by liquid nitrogen for the past 80 years. Jordan Kell is the team leader on this important mission to study the planet’s biosphere, build housing and study the possibility of man moving here. Messages take eight and a half years to reach Earth. The crew doesn’t know that the World Council has reneged on sending backup missions.

 As the crew orbits to the darkside of the planet, they see a beam of light shining upwards. Can there be intelligent life on the planet? Mitchell Thornberry, a roboticist, sends two of his robots down to investigate the beam.The robots go dormant on the planet. Part of the crew land on the surface and find out that there are human-like sentient beings already there. Where did they come from and who are they? Other than Jordan Kell, who falls in love with a alien beauty ( Aditi ), the other eleven crew members don’t trust the seemingly helpful aliens. Or are we the aliens? The leader of New Earth, Adri, seems friendly answering any question asked of him. Or is he? This part of the novel is when I thought it would move forward with extreme gusto. Not.

I haven’t mentioned most of the rest of Kell’s crew because half of the crew have minor speaking roles in this mediocre novel. Basically the book has four meaningful human characters: Jordan Kell and his brother Brandon, a astronomer; Harmon Meek, a astrobiologist; and Mitchell Thornberry. There are two significant alien characters: Adri and Aditi of the planet with two suns ( one is a pup sun ), no moons, bioengineered animals, and energy domes. It takes New Earth 30 years to fully orbit it’s main sun. Doesn’t this sound like a interesting plot? It could have been, but at this point the author runs out of zip and ideas. I felt no empathy for any character, not a good sign. If you want to find out what happens on New Earth after the crew’s landing, you will have to read your own copy. I must give this novel a indifferent rating since it didn’t live up to the teasers on the book's jacket cover. May I interject a mild...blech!

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: Since Ben Bova has written over 100 novels and nonfiction books, not all were recipients of bad reviews. Lets look at some of these book:

Moonwar : Ben Bova's extraordinary Moonbase Saga continues with a breathtaking near-future adventure rich in character and incident. The action begins seven years after the indomitable Stavenger family has realized its cherished dream of establishing a colony on the inhospitable lunar surface. Moonbase is now a thriving community under the leadership of Doug Stavenger, a marvel of scientific achievement created and supported by nanotechnology: virus-size machines that can build, cure, and destroy. But nanotechnology has been declared illegal by the home planet's leaders. And a powerful despot is determined to lay claim to Stavenger's peaceful city...or obliterate it, if necessary. The people of Moonbase--a colony with no arms or military--must now defend themselves from earth-born aggression with the only weapon at their disposal: the astonishing technology that sustains their endangered home. Provided by goodreads.

Voyagers III: Star Brothers : Keith Stoner lay frozen in an alien spacecraft for fifteen long years; during that time he came to be something more than just an astronaut, just a man. Stoner became partly alien himself--merged with an alien intelligence embodied in the nanotechnology that lived inside Stoner's body. The alien whose tomb that spacecraft was, brought humanity both a blessing and a deadly peril. The technology now the control of Vanguard Industries has changed the face of the earth. The technology that lives in Stoner's bloodstream will change mankind forever. Provided by amazon.com.

Empire Builders : Dan Randolph never plays by the rules. A hell-raising maverick with no patience for fools, he is admired by his friends, feared by his enemies, and desired by the world's loveliest women. Acting as a twenty-first privateer, Randolph broke the political strangle-hold on space exploration, and became one of the world's richest men in the bargain.
Now an ecological crisis threatens Earth--and the same politicians that Randolph outwitted the first time want to impose a world dictatorship to deal with it. Dan Randolph knows that the answer lies in more human freedom, not less--and in the boundless resources of space. But can he stay free long enough to give the world that chance? Provided by google.

Voyagers II: The Alien Within : When Keith Stoner awoke, he found himself in a world changed almost beyond recognition. Eighteen years before, Stoner had been the American member of a joint U.S.-Soviet mission to capture an alien ship. The Soviets had to pull out, but Stoner persisted, and while on the strange ship, he fell into suspended animation. Jo Camerata, the ambitious young student who fell in love with Stoner, is now head of Vanguard Industries, which has recovered the alien ship. As a result, her company is now in control of its vast new technology and the fortune it reaps--and in control of Keith Stoner. What Camerata doesn't know, however, is that someone else has been awake, someone who dwells within Stoner's mind. The alien presence that has kept Stoner alive all this time is now free and intends to explore our world, letting nothing stand in its way. Provided by amazon.com.

Farside : Farside, the side of the Moon that never faces Earth, is the ideal location for an astronomical observatory. It is also the setting for a tangled web of politics, personal ambition, love, jealousy, and murder. Telescopes on Earth have detected an Earth-sized planet circling a star some thirty light-years away. Now the race is on to get pictures of that distant world, photographs and spectra that will show whether or not the planet is truly like Earth, and if it bears life. Provided by amazon.com.

This is only a sample of the many books written by Ben Bova. I might have been too harsh in my review, but when you expect a homerun and the writer strikes out...Well, you are disappointed.